Social democratization of the CDU ?: Merz is clearly differentiated

policy

Tuesday, November 27, 2018

For the fifth time, presidential candidates of the CDU present themselves to the members of the party. Friedrich Merz calls to Böblingen to make room for the party's different tendencies. Kramp-Karrenbauer is self-critical.

Friedrich Merz went on the offensive in the run for president of the CDU and warned against a social democratization of the party. "We do not have to pick up all the positions that the Social Democrats find correct," said the former Union faction leader at the fifth regional conference in Böblingen.

The question was whether, in the future, the CDU wanted to be a liberal, conservative and socially convincing party. Merz received a lot of applause for his speech. Chancellor Angela Merkel, a long-time leader of the CDU, has been repeatedly accused by the conservative wing of having moved the party to the left.

For her part, CDU Secretary General Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer acknowledged that the party had not been sufficiently concerned about the social problems of recent years. She said that in Böblingen, people felt that the party had not taken enough care of it and that it "legitimately feared".

"In this case, we should not be surprised if exactly these people are looking for parties that give them at least the impression of worrying about that," Kramp-Karrenbauer said with a vision of the AFD. "It's the failure of the last few years, if you want to talk about failure, you have to (and we're going to do it) get better." She said that openly and self-critically because she was and was part of the party's governing body.

"Counter the trend of all your strengths"

Merz highlighted the significant loss of voice of the Union during general elections and regional elections in Bavaria and Hesse. "We can and must oppose the trend with all our strength." One of them is that the CDU openly admits that in recent years, it has no longer received enough "uncomfortable questions" from society.

The positions of the CDU were no longer clear enough. The CDU has left many people alone with their worries and worries. Merz again criticized the retirement policy of the Great Coalition and pleaded for a fundamental tax reform. Performance should be useful again, he said.

Merz also pleaded for an open, fair and controversial discussion in the contest for the CDU presidency. "All dissenting opinions do not immediately constitute a criticism of a person." He indirectly referred to Kramp-Karrenbauer's statements. She strongly criticized Merz's statement that the Christian Democrats had recognized the AfD's electoral successes only by a "shrug of the shoulders".

Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn, who also ran for the presidency of the CDU, rejected Merz's remarks. "Several thousand CDU activists and party members have opposed the rise of the AfD," he told the Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung.

Source: n-tv.de